New Zealand cinema can refer to films made by New Zealand-based production companies in New Zealand. However, it may also refer to films made about New Zealand by filmmakers from other countries. Due to the comparatively small size of its film industry, New Zealand produces many films that are co-financed by overseas companies.
Geoffrey Peter Murphy was a New Zealand filmmaker, producer, director, and screenwriter best known for his work during the renaissance of New Zealand cinema that began in the second half of the 1970s. His second feature Goodbye Pork Pie (1981) was the first New Zealand film to win major commercial success on its own soil. Murphy directed several Hollywood features during the 1990s, before returning to New Zealand as second-unit director on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Murphy was also at different times a scriptwriter, special effects technician, schoolteacher and trumpet player. He was married to Merata Mita, also a film director, actor, writer.
Goodbye Pork Pie is a 1981 New Zealand comedy film directed by Geoff Murphy, co-produced by Murphy and Nigel Hutchinson, and written by Geoff Murphy and Ian Mune. The film was New Zealand's first large-scale local hit. One book described it as Easy Rider meets the Keystone Cops.
Ian Barry Mune is a New Zealand character actor, director, and screenwriter. His screen acting career spans four decades and more than 50 roles. His work as a film director includes hit comedy Came a Hot Friday, an adaptation of classic New Zealand play The End of the Golden Weather, and What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?, the sequel to Once Were Warriors.
Clifford Vivian Devon Curtis is a New Zealand actor. His film credits include Once Were Warriors (1994), Three Kings (1999), Training Day (2001), Whale Rider (2002), Collateral Damage (2002), Sunshine, Live Free or Die Hard, The Dark Horse (2014), for which he won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor, and Doctor Sleep (2019). Curtis had television series roles on NBC's Trauma and ABC's Body of Proof and Missing. From 2015 to 2017, he portrayed Travis Manawa on the AMC horror drama series Fear the Walking Dead.
James William Napier Robertson is a New Zealand writer, film director, actor and producer, who wrote and directed 2009 film I'm Not Harry Jenson, and 2014 film The Dark Horse, for which he won Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Film at the 2014 New Zealand Film Awards, and which was declared by New Zealand critics "One of the greatest New Zealand films ever made".
Chloë Grace Moretz is an American actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including four MTV Movie & TV Awards, two People's Choice Awards, two Saturn Awards, and two Young Artist Awards.
Taika David Cohen, known professionally as Taika Waititi, is a New Zealand filmmaker, actor, and comedian. He is a recipient of an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Grammy Award, and has received two nominations at the Primetime Emmy Awards. His feature films Boy (2010) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) have each been the top-grossing New Zealand film. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world on its annual list in 2022.
Milo Cawthorne is a New Zealand actor who played Ziggy Grover from the television series Power Rangers RPM.
James Rolleston is a New Zealand actor known for the films Boy and The Dark Horse. The latter was released in October 2014 and had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on 4 September.
The Dark Horse is a 2014 New Zealand drama film written and directed by James Napier Robertson and starring Cliff Curtis and James Rolleston. It won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Score at the 2014 New Zealand Film Awards, Best Film at the 2015 Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), 2015 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) and 2015 Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR), was New York Times Critics' Pick and Time Magazine Critics' Pick, and was labeled by leading New Zealand critics as "One of the greatest New Zealand films ever made". It premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and was created by production company Four Knights Film. The film was released theatrically in the U.S. by Broad Green Pictures on 1 April 2016.
I'm Not Harry Jenson is a micro-budget theatrical New Zealand film released in 2009. It is the first feature film written and directed by James Napier Robertson. It was produced by Tom Hern through the production company Six String Pictures.
Genesis Wayne Potini was a New Zealand speed chess player.
Pork Pie is a 2017 comedy road movie written and directed by New Zealander Matt Murphy and produced by Tom Hern. The film is a remake of the 1981 movie Goodbye Pork Pie, the first New Zealand film to win a substantial local audience. The remake stars Dean O'Gorman, James Rolleston and Ashleigh Cummings as a trio of accidental outlaws who travel the length of New Zealand in a stolen orange New Mini. The film was scored by Jonathan Crayford.
Robert William Nigel Hutchinson was an English-born New Zealand film producer and commercial director best known for co-producing the 1981 film, Goodbye Pork Pie, with Geoff Murphy. Hutchinson also made a small cameo in the classic New Zealand film as a dairy farmer. He produced other films and television commercials, most recently Home by Christmas in 2010.
Roseanne Liang is a New Zealand film director. Her first feature film, My Wedding and Other Secrets, was the first theatrically released feature film made by a Chinese New Zealander and became 2011's highest grossing local feature film. She also co-created, directed, and co-wrote the 2021 TV series Creamerie.
Shadow in the Cloud is a 2020 World War II action horror film directed by Roseanne Liang, from a screenplay by Liang and Max Landis, starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Taylor John Smith, Nick Robinson, Beulah Koale, and Callan Mulvey. It follows a female flight officer on a top-secret mission in the Pacific during the Second World War, who after boarding a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, encounters an evil gremlin during the flight.
The Panthers is a New Zealand drama television miniseries created and executive produced by Halaifonua Finau and Tom Hern in association with Four Knights Film studio. Set during the 1970s, the series focuses on the emergence of the Polynesian Panthers against the backdrop of the controversial dawn raids. The series was released by public broadcaster TVNZ on 15 August on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ On Demand. The series starred Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Polynesian Panthers leader Will Ilolahia, and was written by Tom Hern and Halaifonua Finau.
Jason Howden is a New Zealand film director and visual effects artist.
